SRS 1110 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: SRS 1110
• Professor: Shelley Rabinovitch

Document Summary

The book will examine the religious lives of a broad range of humans communities from an anthropological perspective. Anthropology refers to the study of humanity. The holistic approach studying a society holistically requires a great deal of time time to observe human behaviour and time to interview members of the society. The holistic approach sees human behaviour as a complex set of interacting behaviours and ideas. Another aspect to the holistic approach is to consider both insider and outsider perspectives. An anthropologist- or any scholar cannot be completely neutral and objective when describing a culture. Observation, recording, and analysis involve processing data in ones mind. One"s own cultural background, education, training and other factors will act as a filter or lens that colors what are thought of as objective observation. The idea of culture involves much ore than describing human activity. People also have different belief systems and different perceptions and understanding of their world and their lives.